ANOTHER KIND OF NATION – Zhang Er

She was one of the featured poets in Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival, at Xining. She is the author of multiple books in Chinese and in English translation. ZHANG ER was born in Beijing, and moved to the United States in 1986. She teaches at Evergreen State College, Washington.                                           The Chinese texts are presented in the original as well as in English and in Chinese into her ANOTHER KIND OF NATION, that collects works by twenty-four poets from mainland China born after 1960, who are currently writing and publishing in Chinese. This book offers an introduction to Chinese poetry today, in the shadows of long poetic tradition, the globalization of capitalism. Her poetry and essays have appeared in publications in Taiwan, China, the American émigré community and in a number of American journals.

IN THE SOFT SLEEPER WAITING LONGE – Second Uncle Second Aunt sink into leather sofa which generously sighs. First Class Waiting Lounge. Hooray! Working on the railroad, all the live long day long. Easy enough to puncture hauptbanhof. Thick dermis. Comfortably arrayed around this secret the chaos of outside tides in tides out. Pause, waits for us to calm all the way down. Now continue conversation started two years ago: “There is no grassland any more, desertification they say.” Wrote a few poems, had a child, now there’s no grass left? Rain beats down on yurt, a sheep of rain, where’s ruby-faced girl in long apple, green skirt, gold-trimmed vest? Second Uncle hasn’t changed, only fatter, “Eat only vegetable dishes, no more rice, still get fat!” The easier said than done problem of global diet, solved: “Eat everything, overeat nothing,” I hear myself saying, wish a simple truth, now time for forbidden maple ice cream! Hand inseparable from butt grows into a burden, a part of my body shameful, ambivalent. What to do? Terrorists, emotional trap, recession, late born child, depression, insomnia, insomnia. When Second Uncle was thin, anti-rightist movement, committed mistakes, divorced, transported to border region to herd sheep, the iron, clad conclusion, ah! it’s the fable’s ever, full treasure chest! She pushes her annoying old man in, accidentally during their fight over what is the worthiest thing to put in and what does she pull out? Why, the old man after the old man! Catch the tail of greed, the whip of ethics. Second Uncle always laughs when he tells the Husband Parade story, laughs over and over when he tells. Every day he shoulders the heavy heavy, so when he travels he carries less and less, Second Uncle. I myself have the same tendency now.

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